On June 23, 2025 Astrazeneca reported Datroway (datopotamab deruxtecan or Dato-DXd) has been approved in the US for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have received prior EGFR-directed therapy and platinum-based chemotherapy (Press release, AstraZeneca, JUN 23, 2025, View Source [SID1234654067]).

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This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on objective response rate (ORR) and duration of response (DoR). Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial.

The approval follows Priority Review and Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on results from a subgroup analysis of the TROPION-Lung05 Phase II trial and supported by data from the TROPION-Lung01 Phase III trial.

Jacob Sands, MD, Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and investigator in both trials, said: "Addressing disease progression in patients with advanced EGFR-mutated lung cancer after prior targeted therapy and chemotherapy is very challenging with limited later-line treatment options available. The US approval of datopotamab deruxtecan introduces a novel and needed treatment option to patients with advanced disease."

Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice President, Oncology Haematology Business Unit, AstraZeneca, said: "This first approval of Datroway in lung cancer provides a much-needed option to patients with advanced EGFR-mutated lung cancer whose disease has become resistant to past treatments, regardless of the driving mutation. We have long supported patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer and are proud to bring another innovative treatment option to this community."

Ken Keller, Global Head of Oncology Business, and President and CEO, Daiichi Sankyo, Inc, said: "With today’s accelerated approval, Datroway is now the first TROP2-directed medicine available for certain patients in the US living with lung cancer. We remain committed to our extensive clinical development programme to further identify where Datroway may be used in other types of lung and breast cancer."

Andrea E. Ferris, President and CEO, LUNGevity, said: "For people with advanced EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer whose disease progresses on initial treatments, additional options are limited. Today’s approval of Datroway offers a new treatment option for patients whose disease has progressed following treatment with an EGFR-directed therapy and chemotherapy."

In TROPION-Lung05 and TROPION-Lung01, Datroway demonstrated a confirmed ORR of 45% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 35-54) in patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated NSCLC (n=114) as assessed by blinded independent central review (BICR). Complete responses were seen in 4.4% of patients and partial responses were seen in 40% of patients. The median DoR was 6.5 months (95% CI: 4.2-8.4).

The safety profile of Datroway was evaluated in a pooled analysis of 125 patients in the TROPION-Lung05, TROPION-Lung01 and TROPION-PanTumor01 trials. The safety profile observed across these trials was consistent with the known profile of this medicine with no new safety concerns identified.

Datroway is a specifically engineered TROP2-directed DXd antibody drug conjugate (ADC) discovered by Daiichi Sankyo and being jointly developed and commercialised by AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo.

AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo are evaluating Datroway alone and with Tagrisso (osimertinib) in other advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated NSCLC settings in the TROPION-Lung14 and TROPION-Lung15 Phase III trials.

Financial considerations
Following approval in the US, an amount of $45 million is due from AstraZeneca to Daiichi Sankyo as a milestone payment for the locally advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated NSCLC indication. Sales of Datroway in the US are recognized by Daiichi Sankyo. For further details on the financial arrangements, please consult the collaboration agreement from July 2020.

Notes

Advanced non-small cell lung cancer
Nearly 2.5 million lung cancer cases were diagnosed globally in 2022.1 Lung cancer is broadly split into small or non-small cell lung cancer, the latter accounting for about 87% of cases.2 Approximately 10 to 15% of patients with NSCLC in the US and Europe, and 30 to 40% of patients in Asia have an EGFR mutation.3,4 The majority of EGFR mutations occur in tumours of nonsquamous histology.5 TROP2 is a protein broadly expressed in the majority of NSCLC tumours.6

For patients with tumours that have an EGFR mutation, the established 1st-line treatment in the metastatic setting includes EGFR-directed therapy with or without platinum-based chemotherapy.7 While these therapies have improved outcomes in earlier lines of treatment, most patients eventually experience disease progression and receive subsequent therapies.8-11

TROPION-Lung05
TROPION-Lung05 is a global, multicentre, single-arm, open-label Phase II trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of Datroway in patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC with actionable genomic alterations who have progressed on at least one EGFR-directed therapy and platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients receiving up to four prior lines of treatment with tumours with one or more genomic alterations including EGFR, ALK, ROS1, NTRK, BRAF, RET or MET were eligible for the trial.

The primary endpoint of TROPION-Lung05 is ORR as assessed by BICR. Secondary efficacy endpoints include DoR, disease control rate (DCR), clinical benefit rate, PFS, time to response (TTR), OS and safety. TROPION-Lung05 enrolled 137 patients globally in Asia, Europe and North America. For more information, visit ClinicalTrials.gov.

Primary results from TROPION-Lung05 were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in January 2025.

TROPION-Lung01
TROPION-Lung01 is a global, randomised, multicentre, open-label Phase III trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of Datroway versus docetaxel in adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC with and without actionable genomic alterations who require systemic therapy following prior treatment. Patients with actionable genomic alterations were previously treated with an approved targeted therapy and platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients without known actionable genomic alterations were previously treated, concurrently or sequentially, with platinum-based chemotherapy and a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor.

The dual primary endpoints of TROPION-Lung01 are PFS as assessed by BICR and OS. Key secondary endpoints include investigator-assessed PFS, ORR, DoR, TTR, and DCR as assessed by both BICR and investigator, and safety. TROPION-Lung01 enrolled 590 patients in Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America. For more information visit ClinicalTrials.gov.

Primary results from TROPION-Lung01, as presented at the ESMO (Free ESMO Whitepaper) 2023 Congress, showed Datroway demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in PFS over docetaxel. OS results were presented at the IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer and simultaneously published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in September 2024.

TROPION-PanTumor01
TROPION-PanTumor01 is a first-in-human, open-label, two-part, multicentre Phase I trial evaluating the safety and preliminary efficacy of Datroway in patients with advanced solid tumours that have relapsed or are refractory to standard treatment or for which no standard treatment is available. The dose escalation portion of the trial enrolled patients with NSCLC to assess the safety and tolerability of Datroway to determine the recommended dose for expansion (6mg/kg). The dose expansion part of TROPION-PanTumor01 enrolled several different cohorts including patients with NSCLC, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, urothelial, gastric, pancreatic, castration resistant prostate and oesophageal cancer.

Safety endpoints include dose-limiting toxicities and serious adverse events. Efficacy endpoints include ORR, DoR, TTR, PFS and OS. Pharmacokinetic, biomarker and immunogenicity endpoints also are being evaluated. TROPION-PanTumor01 enrolled 890 patients in Asia and North America. For more information, visit ClinicalTrials.gov.

Datroway
Datroway (datopotamab deruxtecan; datopotamab deruxtecan-dlnk in the US only) is a TROP2-directed ADC. Designed using Daiichi Sankyo’s proprietary DXd ADC Technology, Datroway is one of six DXd ADCs in the oncology pipeline of Daiichi Sankyo, and one of the most advanced programmes in AstraZeneca’s ADC scientific platform. Datroway is comprised of a humanised anti-TROP2 IgG1 monoclonal antibody, developed in collaboration with Sapporo Medical University, attached to a number of topoisomerase I inhibitor payloads (an exatecan derivative, DXd) via tetrapeptide-based cleavable linkers.

Datroway is approved in more than 30 countries worldwide for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HR-positive, HER2-negative (IHC 0, IHC 1+ or IHC 2+/ISH-) breast cancer who have received prior endocrine-based therapy and chemotherapy for unresectable or metastatic disease based on the results from the TROPION-Breast01 trial.

Datroway is available in the US under accelerated approval for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated NSCLC who have received prior EGFR-directed therapy and platinum-based chemotherapy based on results from the TROPION-Lung05 and TROPION-Lung01 trials. Continued approval for this indication in the US may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial. Datroway is approved in Russia for the same population.

Datroway clinical development programme
A comprehensive global clinical development programme is underway with more than 20 trials evaluating the efficacy and safety of Datroway across multiple cancers, including NSCLC, TNBC and HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. The programme includes eight Phase III trials in lung cancer and five Phase III trials in breast cancer evaluating Datroway as a monotherapy and in combination with other anticancer treatments in various settings.

On June 23, 2025 Cidara Therapeutics, Inc. ("Cidara") (Nasdaq: CDTX), a biotechnology company using its proprietary Cloudbreak platform to develop drug-Fc conjugate (DFC) therapeutics, reported its plans to commence an underwritten public offering, subject to market and other conditions, to issue and sell $250.0 million of shares of its common stock (Press release, Cidara Therapeutics, JUN 23, 2025, View Source [SID1234654049]). All of the shares are being offered by Cidara. In connection with the proposed offering, Cidara expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the shares of its common stock sold in the public offering. There can be no assurance as to whether or when the proposed offering may be completed or as to the actual size or terms of the proposed offering.

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J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Guggenheim Securities and Cantor are acting as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering.

The proposed offering is being made pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form S-3 that was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on May 8, 2025, and declared effective by the SEC on May 15, 2025. A preliminary prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to the proposed offering will be filed with the SEC and will be available for free on the SEC’s website located at View Source Copies of the preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the proposed offering may be obtained, when available, from: J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention: Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or by telephone at (866) 803-9204, or by email at [email protected]; Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, or by email at [email protected]; Guggenheim Securities, LLC Attention: Equity Syndicate Department, 330 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017 or by telephone at (212) 518-9544, or by email at [email protected]; or Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. by mail at Attention: Capital Markets, 110 East 59th Street, New York 10022 or by email at [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

On June 23, 2025 Hoth Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: HOTH), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies, reported that they will host a virtual Key Opinion Leader (KOL) event on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at 3:30PM EST (Press release, Hoth Therapeutics, JUN 23, 2025, View Source [SID1234654070]). Access/join the event through the following link: View Source

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Hoth Therapeutics will host a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) event on June 24, 2025, at 3:30PM EST to highlight recent clinical progress with HT-001, a novel topical therapeutic developed to address EGFR inhibitor-induced skin toxicities in cancer patients. This event will feature insights from derm-oncology and dermatology specialists Jonathan Hale Zippin M.D., Ph.D., and Adam Friedman M.D., F.A.A.D., who will present interim results from the ongoing Phase 2 trial and discuss how HT-001 could redefine supportive care standards for oncology patients.

On June 23, 2025 Enterome SA, a clinical-stage company developing first-in-class OncoMimics immunotherapies to treat cancer, reported positive interim results for its OncoMimics immunotherapy EO2463 from Cohorts 1 and 4 of the ongoing open label Phase 1/2 SIDNEY trial in patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (iNHL), at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano (Press release, Enterome, JUN 23, 2025, View Source [SID1234654050]). Interim data including 24 patients with follicular and marginal zone lymphoma (relapsed/refractory iNHL) showed that treatment with EO2463 in combination with lenalidomide and rituximab (R2) was well tolerated and demonstrated encouraging signs of efficacy that appear better than historical data in similar patients treated with R2.

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Importantly, EO2463 showed direct anti-lymphoma activity, including partial responses to the OncoMimics monotherapy, during the first six weeks of the study, a short time period during which just the first three doses of EO2463 were administered, before the protocol called for initiation of treatment with lenalidomide (followed subsequently by adding rituximab). Moreover, once lenalidomide and rituximab were added, the effect of EO2463 appeared to support a deepening of responses, resulting in a complete response rate of 60%, higher than would have been expected with R2 alone, based on historical data[1].

Pierre Belichard, CEO of Enterome said, "The EO2463 interim results are very encouraging, demonstrating exceptional tolerability for an active immunotherapy, and showing a clear signal that the combination with R2 can provide more robust responses in this patient population over R2 alone. This is consistent with the strong response rate we observed with EO2463 monotherapy in patients with low tumor burden disease, the so-called ‘watch-and-wait’ population, included in Cohort 2 of SIDNEY. While we plan to focus our near-term efforts on initiating a registrational Phase 3 trial of EO2463 for the watch-and-wait population, this evidence of a complementary effect in combination with R2 in relapsed/refractory iNHL is very exciting and offers new hope for this patient group, most of whom still see insufficient efficacy with available therapeutics."

EO2463 is designed to expand pre-existing memory CD8+ T cells recognizing non-self-protein sequences from gut bacteria, which mimic several purposefully selected B cell antigens. The interim SIDNEY data from Cohorts 1 and 4 presented at ICML show fast, robust, and durable expansion of the specific CD8+ T cells that were active against EO2463 mimic peptides and the targeted B cell epitopes. Most important, the magnitude of the EO2463-driven expansion of specific CD8+ T cells correlated with the probability of complete remission upon treatment with EO2463 combined with R2 in the SIDNEY study. EO2463 in combination with lenalidomide and rituximab (R2 ) is well tolerated in patients with follicular and marginal zone lymphoma.

Jan Fagerberg, Chief Medical Officer of Enterome, said, "These early efficacy results suggest EO2463 offers additional benefit when used together with the R2 regimen in patients with relapsed/refractory iNHL. We previously reported data from Cohort 2 of SIDNEY, at ASH (Free ASH Whitepaper) in December 2024, showing that EO2463 OncoMimics monotherapy generated a 46% objective response rate in patients who are usually proposed ‘watchful waiting’ and no active anti-lymphoma therapy – and also had an excellent tolerability profile. In short, taken together, these SIDNEY data indicate that this well tolerated novel active immunotherapy may well have broad potential across hematological malignancies."

EO2463 is an innovative, off-the-shelf OncoMimics active immunotherapy that combines four synthetic peptides. These non-self, microbial-derived peptides correspond to CD8 HLA-A2 epitopes that exhibit molecular mimicry with the B lymphocyte-specific lineage markers CD20, CD22, CD37, and CD268 (BAFF receptor). It also includes the helper peptide (CD4+ epitope) universal cancer peptide 2 (UCP2).

The unique ability of EO2463 active immunotherapy to selectively target multiple B cell markers enables the destruction of malignant B lymphocytes. By ensuring broad target coverage across malignant B cells, this novel approach aims to simultaneously improve safety and maximize efficacy, reducing the tumor cells’ capacity to develop immune-resistance mechanisms such as antigen escape.

SIDNEY is an ongoing open label Phase 1/2 study that aims to assess safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and preliminary efficacy of EO2463 monotherapy and combination therapy with lenalidomide/rituximab in up to 55 patients with follicular lymphoma and marginal zone lymphoma including four cohorts of three patient populations:

Cohort 2: patients with newly diagnosed, previously untreated low tumor burden disease, not in need of standard of care therapy, i.e., the "watch-and-wait" setting; treatment = EO2463 monotherapy
Cohort 3: patients with newly diagnosed, previously untreated low tumor burden disease, in need of therapy; treatment = EO2463 in combination with rituximab
Cohorts 1 and 4: patients with relapsed/refractory disease and at least one prior treatment; treatment = EO2463 in combination with lenalidomide and rituximab (R2)
OncoMimics are synthetically produced peptides designed in silico using AI and machine learning to mine Enterome’s extensive proprietary database of microbial bacteria. Unlike cancer antigens, OncoMimics bypass a gating process, known as thymic deletion, that prevents the immune system from mounting an attack against the "self" proteins (e.g. antigen) on tumor and blood cancer cells. Furthermore, that they trigger a more targeted, rapid and robust immune response than would otherwise be possible, because very early in human development the immune system learns to protect the body from microbiome bacteria. This means that OncoMimics call up memory CD8+ T cells that selectively target the cancer cells that carry the mimicked antigen(s). This therapeutic strategy takes inspiration from and is de-risked by emulating the gut microbiome’s causal role in certain autoimmune diseases.

OncoMimics are easy to manufacture, store, distribute and administer as an "off-the-shelf" subcutaneous injection. In clinical testing to date they have been shown to be extremely well tolerated, especially compared to other potent immunotherapies.

On June 23, 2025 Nuvalent, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUVL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on creating precisely targeted therapies for clinically proven kinase targets in cancer, reported that the company will host a webcast and conference call on Tuesday, June 24, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. ET, to discuss pivotal data for zidesamtinib, a novel ROS1-selective inhibitor, in TKI pre-treated patients with advanced ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer from the global ARROS-1 Phase 1/2 clinical trial (Press release, Nuvalent, JUN 23, 2025, View Source [SID1234654074]).

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Webcast and Conference Call Information

To access the call, please dial +1 (800) 836-8184 (domestic) or +1 (646) 357-8785 (international) at least 10 minutes prior to the start time and ask to be joined to the Nuvalent call.

Accompanying slides and a live video webcast will be available in the Investors section of the Nuvalent website at https://investors.nuvalent.com/events. A replay and accompanying slides will be archived on the Nuvalent website for 30 days.

About Zidesamtinib and the ARROS-1 Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial

Zidesamtinib is a novel brain-penetrant ROS1-selective inhibitor created with the aim to overcome limitations observed with currently available ROS1 inhibitors. Zidesamtinib is designed to remain active in tumors that have developed resistance to currently available ROS1 inhibitors, including tumors with treatment-emergent ROS1 mutations such as G2032R. In addition, zidesamtinib is designed for central nervous system (CNS) penetrance to improve treatment options for patients with brain metastases, and to avoid inhibition of the structurally related tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) family. Together, these characteristics have the potential to avoid TRK-related CNS adverse events seen with dual TRK/ROS1 inhibitors and to drive deep, durable responses for patients across all lines of therapy. Zidesamtinib has received breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of patients with ROS1-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have been previously treated with 2 or more ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors and orphan drug designation for ROS1-positive NSCLC.

Zidesamtinib is currently being investigated in the ARROS-1 trial (NCT05118789), a first-in-human Phase 1/2 clinical trial for patients with advanced ROS1-positive NSCLC and other solid tumors. The completed Phase 1 portion enrolled ROS1-positive NSCLC patients who previously received at least one ROS1 TKI, or patients with other ROS1-positive solid tumors who had been previously treated. The Phase 1 portion of the trial was designed to evaluate the overall safety and tolerability of zidesamtinib, with additional objectives including determination of the recommended Phase 2 dose, characterization of the pharmacokinetic profile, and evaluation of preliminary anti-tumor activity. The ongoing global, single arm, open label Phase 2 portion is designed with registrational intent for TKI-naïve and TKI pre-treated patients with ROS1-positive NSCLC.